


we would make an incredible opera

by thir13enth



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, also for FEFemSlash February!, because i'm trying lmao, for Edelthea Week!, literally just going to be a series of self-indulgent one-shots, not really related but imagine they were all in the same timeline, nothing SPECIAL TO SEE HERE LADS JUST TWO GIRLS IN LOVE
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22519579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: To a brighter dawn, we will carry on. Chronological drabbles for Edelthea Week/FEFemSlash February.
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 53
Collections: FE Femslash February 2020





	1. you take my breath away

**Author's Note:**

> for [Edelthea Week](https://twitter.com/edeltheaweek) prompts and [FEFemSlash February](https://twitter.com/FEFemslash) because why not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **prompts:** training (edelthea) && breathe (fefemslash)

At least Edelgard _started_ with the right idea when she decides training with Dorothea would not only be more time-efficient (so they sneak in an extra tea break before dinner) but also more fun (because doing anything and everything with Dorothea makes things much more enjoyable).

But now Edelgard realizes it is entirely impossible to focus on training — especially with Dorothea inventing new choreography and perfecting her dancing. Dorothea is just as enchanting in the far corner of the training room as she is on the battlefield.

Training with her is the exact opposite of being efficient.

And while Edelgard has purposefully moved her training dummy to the other side of the room so that her body was turned away from Dorothea, she somehow always finds herself taking quick glances behind her shoulder or taking extra long breaks as she recovers from a set of parries — eyes captivated by the soft sway of Dorothea’s hips, ears catching the lovely impromptu tunes Dorothea hums to herself to match the rhythm of her feet.

Every now and then, Dorothea’s body spins with enough momentum to lift her skirt ever so slightly, showing off the line of her thigh muscles. Edelgard thinks it’s especially adorable when Dorothea furrows her eyebrows, suddenly stopping mid-twirl and muttering to herself before starting her dance again from the top.

As always, Dorothea looks astute when her wavy, brown hair is tied back into a ponytail. Edelgard likes how her hair (clearly too heavy and thick for one tie) always loosens itself, presenting flyaways as Dorothea’s dance goes on. Dorothea gets annoyed every other minute or so, irritatingly re-tying her hair back up again.

Edelgard thinks she’ll buy Dorothea some hair ties the next time she’s at the market — she’ll have to demand the very strongest and highest quality from Anna.

Sometimes she wonders if Dorothea will ever let her help with her hair. She imagines standing behind Dorothea as Dorothea tells her yet another story about her time in the opera. She gathers Dorothea’s hair in her ungloved hands (the smell of her flowery shampoo wafting off), tucking stubborn locks behind her ears, and weaving ribbons and ornaments into a braid.

 _Focus_ , Edelgard reminds herself. _You’re hopeless_ , she realizes. She’s much too distracted to come out of this session more practiced with her axe.

 _Ah, but now you’re just giving yourself excuses_ , she scolds herself. With this, she closes her eyes, shaking her head of thoughts. She charges full ahead at the wood dummy, swinging her axe into an undercut.

One, two — and she whirls around — three. Her right hand slides up to choke the head of the axe blade, and she taps deflection points off the dummy with the butt of her axe. One, two — and she takes a step back — three. And another time. One, two —

“Don’t forget to breathe, Edie!” Dorothea teases, interrupting her sequence.

Edelgard inhales sharply. “Huh?” she asks, but as the air fills her lungs, she immediately realizes.

“Isn’t that what Professor always tells you?” Dorothea reminds her, hand resting on her hip. “You have a terrible habit of holding your breath, and it makes your blows weaker.”

A smile cracks over Edelgard’s lips. “Right,” she replies, turning and propping her axe over her shoulder.

 _Hard to breathe when you’re in the room_ , she wants to say.

“You’ve been watching me this whole time, haven’t you?” she says instead.

“Well,” Dorothea replies, winking. “I could say the same for you.”


	2. your smile is worth a million

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **prompts:** nobility/laity (edelthea week) && laughter (fefemslash)

Edelgard presents Dorothea with the giftbox — carefully wrapped in silver flowery paper and tied with a lavender ribbon.

“For me?” Dorothea asks, an immediate light in her eyes. “Oh, Edie, thank you so much! What occasion is this even for?”

“No occasion,” Edelgard replies. “I just thought of you.”

Edelgard’s heart beats fast as Dorothea takes the box in one hand and then embraces her, bringing her into her strong and sturdy body. Her heart beats even faster as Dorothea takes a seat at the nearby table, crossing her legs and unwrapping the gift. She simply watches Dorothea unwrap the box, but admittedly her eyes keep straying up to look at Dorothea’s smile.

She made Dorothea smile. This is a smile that she created all in her own effort. She thought of the gift idea herself, and she made sure she got exactly what she wanted to get Dorothea. She hadn’t even asked Hubert to accompany her to market!

Dorothea lifts the box’s top up — inside is a set of satin hair ties, of all different colors, some of them decorated with wooden charms or beads.

“Oh, _Edie_ ,” Dorothea sighs, picking one of them up and examining it at eye level. This one has a loop of dark red ribbon strung around it. “I _do_ need hair ties. I’m always losing them and the ones that I have are too weak. These are perfect!”

Edelgard’s heart swells. She watches Dorothea start to comb her hair back to test the tie.

“I got them at the market just for you,” Edelgard says, her breath getting ahead of her. “I asked for the best quality ones, and Anna told me these were the best. That’s why they were the most expensive.”

Dorothea pauses, her hair in a half bun. “The most expensive?”

“Yes! They were five times price of the other ones,” Edelgard replies. But realizing how that sounds, she reels back her words. “But that’s no matter,” she assures Dorothea. “It was not at all that much.”

“Five times? How much did you pay?”

Edelgard shakes her head. “Please don’t worry about the price. This is a gift from me to you.”

“ _Edie_ ,” Dorothea says firmly, releasing her hair and letting the brown waves fall back to her shoulders. “How much were the hair ties?”

Edelgard bites her lip, then tells her the price. Dorothea’s eyebrow raises incredulously.

“Was that before or after you haggled?”

“Haggled?”

Dorothea blinks, but a grin starts to stretch over her lips. “Yes, _haggle_. Like when you ask the merchant for a lower price.”

Edeglard blinks. “Oh. Is that a customary thing to do at the market?”

Suddenly, Dorothea bursts out into laughter. Edelgard doesn’t quite know what’s so funny but watching Dorothea, she starts to chuckle as well.

“Oh, _Edie_ ,” she exclaims. “You people of nobility are so funny! You probably have never haggled before in your _life_! Anna must have made you pay _so much more_ than the actual value! Anna probably knew you wouldn’t know a thing about a bargain and that you absolutely had the means to pay a ridiculous amount for these hair ties. She tricked you into paying more than usual!”

Edelgard’s eyes widen. She blinks and tries to suppress her embarrassment. “I see.”

Dorothea gives her a crooked smile, as if trying to hold back another laugh. “Next time you want to buy me something again, bring someone from laity with you,” she suggests with a wink. “Someone good at getting a deal so that you don’t pay more than you need. Ashe, maybe. He’s good at bargaining.”

“Well. I’m sure she needs the extra money. And my family has more than enough to spare,” Edelgard blubbers, nodding and feeling a blush rise over her cheeks. “It’s really not all that big of a deal.”

Dorothea breaks then, a loud and boisterous laugh. “Well, think about it this way — the more you haggle, the more you can get, and then the more things you can gift _me_!”

Edelgard smiles then. “You’re absolutely right,” she agrees.

She thinks she’ll pay any price to hear Dorothea laugh.


	3. all these nights together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **prompts:** gift/secrets (edelthea week) && freeze (fefemslash) - a very subtle hit on both prompts but i hope you enjoy!

Again, it seems as always, another late night simply chatting away the time.

It’s become routine by now. After dinner, Edelgard and Dorothea would take a long and lengthy walk around Garreg Mach, by now, a very familiar path. The scenery is all the same. They would see the same overturned rocks, the same flowers in bloom, the same scarred tree… but this is fine — they’re too busy looking at each other to notice.

Then after a couple circles around the lake, they’d retreat to Edelgard’s room — because it’s more spacious (or so they think) and Edelgard has the better furniture arrangement. That is, her bed faced the window, so they’d have no choice but to sit together in her bed, leaning against her bedstand, her pillows at their backs as they continue chatting, watching the stars grow brighter in the sky.

But tonight, something not so routine happens — a rustle from the nearby bushes.

With a quick gasp, Dorothea instinctively reaches out for Edelgard’s hand, backing away from the sound and siding into Edelgard’s hip. Edelgard’s heart beats fast upon hearing the sudden sound, but even faster upon feeling the spark between their fingers. As nerve-wracking the imminent threat of danger in the middle of the night, there isn’t an ounce of fear in Edelgard:

She’s together with Dorothea. Nothing could go wrong when she was with her.

And nothing does wrong. Nothing jumps out to scare them, creeps them out, nor makes them retreat to Edelgard’s room — but Dorothea’s hand stays in hers.

Edelgard only lets go of Dorothea’s hand when they reach her room, turning around to push Dorothea back against the door. The door clicks shut as Edelgard tiptoes and presses a kiss onto Dorothea’s lips. Brief, soft, and gentle.

When she pulls away, Dorothea looks at her with wide eyes, frozen.

Oh no. She’s made a horrific mistake, hasn’t she?

A cold draft blows in through the open window. Edelgard immediately excuses herself.

“It’s freezing in here, isn’t it? I should close the window,” she quickly mumbles, turning away.

But Dorothea takes her hand again and pulls her in for another kiss. This time, long, strong, and deep. Dorothea steps closer and closer to her, guiding her backwards into her bed. They fall into the blankets and pillows, Dorothea’s body crushing her with delightful pressure.

When Dorothea runs out of breath, she lifts her head and simply looks down at Edelgard, as if waiting for her response. With a growing smile, Edelgard simply raises her hands to cradle Dorothea’s face between her hands.

“I… I’m so glad you kissed me,” Edelgard tells her.

Dorothea returns the smile. “Me too.”

Edelgard takes a moment to word her question. “When… do you think you knew?”

Dorothea averts her eyes, as if embarrassed. She meets Edelgard’s eyes again, with full confidence.

“I think I always knew,” she replies. “I just never kissed you until now.”

“Are you telling me that we could have been kissing much sooner than today?”

Dorothea laughs. “I guess I am.”

Edelgard pouts. “Why’d you keep this a secret from me?”

“Well, I didn’t know if you really liked me or not! You’re very intimidating, you know, _Emperor Edelgard_.”

Hearing Dorothea say her full name with that kind of _emphasis_ stirs a small flame at her center. Edelgard swallows thickly. “I gave you so many gifts. I thought it was obvious!” she quickly replies.

“Yes, but you’re very generous to everyone in your house,” Dorothea chuckles, leaning in close. “I couldn’t risk assuming I was special.”

“You should have taken the chance sooner,” Edelgard says.

“Hm,” Dorothea hums, then dropping her head to kiss her again.

They spend the rest of their hours kissing, making up for all the times they could have been doing so much sooner.

Again, it seems as always, another late night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also very sorry for the later upload! (I was…. rewatching the super bowl halftime show and listening to pitbull lmao. very distracted!)

**Author's Note:**

> you know where to find me:
> 
> twitter @ napsbeforesleep  
> pillowfort @ ahumanintraining  
> discord @ ahumanintraining#2153


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